Due to the increased amount of space travel which has been conducted in the last few years, it has been discovered that many microscopic particulates and cometary comas travelling at great speeds are prevalent in deep space. These particulates which, for example, are present on the tails of comets, are of great interest to scientists as a tool in helping to unravel the many mysteries of deep space, as well as space engineers who study these particles in order to be able to design an adequate capsule, rocket or space vehicle skin which would be impervious to the repeated impacts of these small microscopic particulates.
Prior art detectors include the use of optical devices and pressurized meteor detectors. Optical devices are unsatisfactory in the environment of interest because these devices tend to become light limited in the vicinity of a comet. Pressurized meteor detectors have limited application because they tend to respond only to particles having relatively high impact velocity and become inoperative after one impact.
Other prior art devices utilize a solar battery or photovoltaic cell such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,944,250 to Outt. This patent shows a method of determining meteor flux by employing a number of series and parallel connected solar batteries. One of these batteries is utilized to indicate the missile roll rate and missile aspect angle of attack, while the other batteries are used as a means for measuring the integrated eroding effects of the high velocity meteorite particles. This patent gathers information regarding mass per unit time, particle number per unit time and particle-size distribution needed for calculating effects on skins of missiles and space vehicles by measuring the deterioration in the output of a solar battery due to the sandblasting effect of the cell by the micrometeorites. A first reading is taken at T.sub.1 and a second reading is taken at T.sub.2. The difference in the intensity of these readings therefore gives rise to meteor flux during the time period T.sub.2 -T.sub.1. Therefore, since the output of Outt gives an integrated reading, it cannot measure the exact number of impacts nor can it measure the kinetic energy of each of the particulates.